We sail from Hammamet to Gibraltar.
We sail from Hammamet to Gibraltar September 10th 2013
We decided to
top up the fuel tanks as the diesel was more than a third cheaper than even in
‘tax free’ Gibraltar. Les checked us out with authorities whilst I refueled.
“Do you have a gift for
the local police?” It took Les nearly an hour to check out. Firstly, we
had to pay the marina fees - and get our ships papers back. Then we were
taken to customs.
We had
officially left Tunisia!
We were now
sailing to Gibraltar.
After 3 hours of sailing we had dolphins on both sides of the boat, a great start.
Then the wind
died and we were motoring.
The wind
direction over the next few days was taking us in a north westerly direction -
towards the Balearic Islands. This suited us, as we did not want to be
sailing by the Algerian coast and we had heard stories (ocean legends!) of
yachts being directed north straight out of Algerian space by patrol
boats. Cathy and I used these days to experiment with baking, which was a treat for all of us.
Typically for
most of the sail the wind blew from the North East at 10 to 17 knots.
By September
16th and 150 miles from Gibraltar the wind built to 30 knots and the
swell was getting larger. The closer we sailed towards Gibraltar (but still many
miles to go) the waves became shorter and higher. The wind seemed to be backing to come from the
direction we were heading to. John
started to update the latest weather forecast as this weather had NOT been
forecast previously.
It was about
now that we noticed a diesel smell from below. We tracked the fuel smell to a
leak from the top flange of the fuel tank. Not dangerous but just
uncomfortable. It was about now that the incessant aft lazarette bilge alarms started to really get on our nerves! Basically they had shipped enough water to set the bilge pumps working and insisted on making sure you knew EVERY TIME they turned ON. We thought we had sorted this but the big swell had really put the boat through it’s paces. It was about now that we discovered the pool of water forming below the solon front windows. Oh no! Where did come from? This was
shortly before finding out that the 110v power supply ring had stopped working.
We later found out that the invertor that generated the 110v had shut down because of the leak!
Finally, we
saw the Rock! As we rounded the Rock into the main Strait a cruise ship called us by name on the VHF radio! Gosh! That’s a rarity. The captain wanted to let us know that he was awaiting the pilot to take him into Gibraltar and to check that we were not about to cross his path.
“Negative! Negative! There is NO room here.” The entrance to Gibraltar was very busy. As per normal we called ahead to the marina, ‘Ocean Village Marina’ for a berth (they don’t accept reservations here). “Negative! Negative! Timeless. There is NO room here due to the current weather conditions yachts have remained longer than expected. Call Queensway Marina or La Linea Marina . ”
Queensway Marina also in Gibraltar had been listening. “That is also a negative at Queensway Marina, sorry Timeless.”
This is definitely NOT what we needed to hear…. |